i am. bahrain slashes the sentences for dozens of anti-government activists but human rights groups call it a half measure and western states of gays. or children are killed as a car bomb explodes and hits a school bus near damascus well there's no news of a ukrainian journalist kidnapped in syria. and the u.k.'s northeast feels a financial pinch even as the country scrambles out of recession with layoffs and new regional regeneration.

on air and online the twenty four hours a day watching r.t. bahrain cut the sentences for dozens of people who took part in anti-government rallies last year when the move has failed to satisfy local activists who are calling for the release of all political prisoners and human rights groups in the kingdom to stop using tear gas and torture interrogations and its crackdown on public gatherings. looks at benefits from the two year on rest. when it came to supporting calls for democracy in middle eastern north african states while denouncing government sponsored violence leaders of the west were vocally critical from our graphic has lost legitimacy to lead and he must leave out a very clear message for president which is it is time for him to go but when scenes of violent clashes between riot police and reform complain risk came from

bahrain the definition of democracy shifted and rhetoric softened. in the summer of the us state department came up with a statement expressing its concerns over the human rights situation and alleged torture in bahrain this was only several months after washington had restarted weapons sales to this gulf state dissenters in bahrain have been directing anger at their government for months now stop arming the killers is the message they are more often the same to the west some of the in bahrain blood is worthless and the libyan blood is more important it's just critical a stand so you see from travels to europe to direct attention to what he believes to be brutal repression in his country and he and others like him have managed to alert human rights organizations but that's as far as it goes they go clinton made a statement about bahrain about the. situation in bahrain and this. one

protester was killed you know and show you that there is no impact on the ground we are a victim and behind because we live in a country they condemn the violence committed by the bahraini government against the peaceful protests there and beheading but that is still continuing for decades bahrain has been one of washington's closest allies in the gulf its naval base houses the u.s. fifth fleet and six thousand troops a seemingly irreversible decision made decades ago despite the growing anti-american mood among some of bahrain's neighbors. anything happens in the bush era plant or any of the other plants that there are allegations of a nuclear weapon being built we are very close to all of those sites and we have to make the right decision in preventing any kind of catastrophe coming here we are or are not capable of doing that and that's why we turn to our friends and allies and officials firmly deny that washington plays a decisive role in preventing any revolution happening in bahrain even the bahraini

government's information minister suggests the us main fact be playing a double game. i think the bahraini opposition is a key ally of the us leader of the opposition and the terrorist members of the opposition have close ties with foreign embassies in bahrain we can leak some of the old many documents proving that if this is true then washington sitting comfortably we can quickly switch sides but for now the opposition in bahrain is left to wonder as to why goals to support democracy from some are less worthy of attention than others like see russia ski r.t. reporting from the kingdom of bahrain four people have died in a car bombing near the syrian capital damascus when a vehicle exploded near a busy crossing and another planned terror attack a much larger one has been thwarted in the country's north across opponent in the region paulus there has latest. we are hearing that some four people have been

killed and ten people injured in an explosion of a booby trapped car in damascus now we understand that most of the people who are in willed and injured are students in a separate incident the authorities managed to uncover a truck loaded with some three tons of explosives in the north a managed to dismantle those before any kind of incidents of could there have been numerous incidents throughout today and the last few days through the army rebels and through the army troops in the rebels fighting one another we're also hearing reports that the troops managed to destroy a number of rebel vehicles as well as missile launches at the same time they're reporting that they managed to prevent rebel attacks on checkpoints in numerous villages this is a fine it's not just between rebels and government troops but media workers also also in the line of fire ukrainian journalist is now being held by a opposition rebel group for some two months and there was a deadline for ransom of some fifteen million u.s.

dollars that has not passed this is in fact the second deadline that was given the ukrainian foreign ministry saying that it is holding talks over her release but not wanting to release any kind of details now the ripples on no strangers to kidnapping foreigners there are two russian workers in syria who were also taken hostage last week and the russian government is now trying to secure the release the mounting violence in syria comes against the backdrop of and it's elation of the information war that is happening in the country the rebels have continued to impose to videos of the lived massacres that they've been carrying out massacres in which they've laid aside and his loyalists now the damascus regime has always insisted that it is the rebels who obvious sponsible who are these killings russia to say that the rebels are trying to provoke foreign intervention by posting such videos point needs to be made that all these kinds of videos almost impossible to verify it. as international efforts to put an end to the violence in syria mounts

so is media speculation about what is actually going to be done to achieve peace moscow has denied reports of a new russian american deal is in the works saying the only way out is by creating a transitional government a plan drawn up in geneva in june the syrian delegation has held a closed door meeting in moscow. has the details moscow on thursday has officially denied speculation that russia and the united states have been secretly working on a plan b. on the conflict in syria has once again stressed that it's taking by the agreements reached a last summer in geneva peaceful transition of power involving the creation of a transitional government which should include all sides of the conflict as you call syria's deputy foreign minister met with russia's chief diplomat in moscow on thursday behind closed doors very little details came out of it but there is speculation that they were discussing the a long awaited peace deal in the syrian

conflict and it comes after international envoy on syria mr brahimi met with the syrian president on monday in damascus after this meeting he said that he had a good feeling and some positive things were happening in fact mr brahimi is also expected in the russian capital on saturday moscow has a good chance of mediating this since it's been in contact with the syrian authorities and with the opposition unlike most western countries who denounce president and the syrian government as the official power in the country. the case on the tentative road to recovery but parts of the country are not sharing in the turnaround people in britain's poorest region the northeast are still feeling the pinch there three times more attempted suicides then and in the london area. went to see why the situation looks in bleak. as the old saying impressing gays it's grim up north it's a perception of life in some of the nation's other major cities recessions hit the

case hard it's been in the northeast where it's been felt particularly acutely. in a recession and that is right. here i mean you know the very people who are living on the poverty line trade union leader about scott's furious with the government's decision to close sunderland's rempel a factory it's a government venture that began back in the nine hundred forty s. to provide employment for people with disabilities two weeks before christmas the government announced that they were going to close. in factories and leaves a very bleak uncertain future for disabled workers killa stops was laid off from another rempel a factory back in april and accuses the government of forcing people out of paid jobs and on to a life of welfare we were told in the week before we left the factory.

jobs. yeah in fact just four people from his old factory found a job it's not the first time that northern workers have felt the first hand of a conservative government back in the one nine hundred eighty s. and the miners' strike under margaret thatcher became a symbol of a divided nation this mining village in the living museum in the northeast gives us a snapshot of the past nearly three decades since margaret thatcher and her conservative government crushed the miners' unions the impact that her policies had on the north east was extreme and long felt and even today there are many people who still have a deep mistrust of the conservative government the conservatives reputation up here is one that's hard to shake and it makes it hard for them to get a fair hearing on any plans to regenerate to find out more we decided it was time to pay a visit to number ten i was shocked at the level of understanding on the conservative

benches the pope people who live in. the north east. very often and i think they have a completely different view of how people's lives of the government are accused of not understanding the north but isn't that you're job to represent the things to be a fair bit of bickering that goes on among northern and. well i mean having an accent in the house of commons you know i've got quite happy ducks and but that sort of you get sneers when you have an accent and you speak in the commons from the government benches so that in itself is just an example of how the mismatch between the two sides of the government insists it's treating grace in the area seriously and his earmarks money for infrastructure projects targeting the northeast in particular but a legacy of let downs has left many northerners less than and see what we're saying

is. the government this is going to happen this is. it's a complete shambles so all in it together or a nation divided one thing seems certain that with many predicting an increase in unemployment and a triple dip recession for the way the challenges of the year ahead looks to be testing times for everyone so r.t. sandland. but a ban on americans adopting russian kids is about to be signed into law president putin is ready to put a response to washington sanctions on the russian officials and. reaction in the couple of minutes. and iran says it will take u.n. observers inspect its military bases in the west he says it's pressure but they'll freeze it lucky to for them to this report on to the break.

if you're from my generation or younger and you were born into the one percent that i have a lot of college debt i sure do you know the deal used to be that you paid a significant amount for education but in turn that gave you a much higher salary later but now the system works in reverse many young americans studied very hard to not make any money at all around nine percent of americans with student loans have defaulted and at least nine but maybe up to eighteen percent are ninety days late with their payments given the situation the people at u.c. berkeley were nice enough to give away a million dollars in scholarships for everyone everyone that's an illegal immigrant yeah that's right if you're born in america then pay to jump the border and enjoy the red carpet education treatment the people who would be getting the scholarships

are mostly the children of illegal immigrants who spent many of their formative years in america and yeah i could see the logic that could be hard for them to get an education wonder when they aren't citizens but they came into the country illegally it isn't taxpayers jobs to help them but wait berkeley it's a private institution so i guess they can give out the money to whoever they want whenever they want however they want but berkeley management if you're watching this i would really appreciate if you chose some financial mercy to american citizens it isn't like they don't need the help but that's just me. my opinion. more news today violence has once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada after. the giant corporations rule

today. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. choose your language. of holy week over though in the federal communications commission to. choose good news the consensus here to. choose the opinions that immigrate to. choose the stories that in high life choose me access to your office.

here with our team or well. president putin has confirmed he will sign a ban on venting u.s. citizens from adopting russian children who make targets what they call america's treatment russian children suffer well it has more on the president putin's agenda now he says that he doesn't see any reason why he shouldn't sign it but he did mention that he should take one very close careful look at the final draft of this law on top of that however with him has also mentioned that he is ready to sign. a law which would increase the protection of russian children in the country itself

now the law bears the name of this was a young boy who was adopted by an american family and died while in custody of his new adoptive father now the father was left off with just a fine after leaving his young son in a car in a blistering heat for hours the congress parked outside of his office and it's the cases precisely like this that worry the russian lawmakers to say that the american law system is not is not cut out to provide enough security for the russian children who are being adopted by american parents and should another tragedy like this strike they don't want the russian children now a lot of people see this as they get back at the americans for. the so-called act which entails a list of people who are prohibited from ever entering the united states and their financial assets in the country also are frozen now now said the minister was

a russian lawyer who was imprisoned on charges of tax evasion and died while in custody that case has never seen any any logical conclusion it is not quite possible at this point to say whether or not the people who are accused of being involved in the case are actually at fault and should be blamed for his death. well a lot has sparked a heated debate let's discuss it now with our guest here in the studio patrick fflick founder of science connections and someone with a background in helping children cross cultural barriers and educational thanks for joining us here in you know is this a fair response do you think to the u.s. magnitsky act well it's certainly a response whether it's fair whether it's proportionate whether it's appropriate i think is something that really remains to be seen we've seen certainly a very strong response to it already on the streets in russia outside the duma we're beginning to see some response in the american media and to some extent of

the european media as well so i think there is going to be an awful lot of commentary that's emerging over the next few days which will make a judgment about this and is it really retaliate then for the u.s. well i think there's probably very little doubt from what i've seen in the media i haven't actually seen any of the russian media over the last few days but as i understand it the russian president has talked about this being something about the u.s. government flexing its muscle showing that it's the master of the game and i believe the president also talked about it being a slap on the cheek for russia and russia not being prepared to turn the other cheek under these circumstances so i think there's very little doubt in my mind that it is actually responsible magnitsky but what about all the children may lose the chance to to have a loving family well this is the heart of it isn't it this is absolutely the heart of it and sadly i think whenever the subject of adoption comes up in the news it

really seems to bring out the bad side of things we had recently the case in the u.k. as you all know of the children that were removed from the family because the parents were deemed to have political affiliations that were inappropriate and in this case as well as the sick. russians involved in the list in the magnet magnitsky case who are no longer going to be able to go on holiday to the u.s. take their wives shopping there or whatever we have something between six hundred and seven hundred thousand children in care in russia looking for a loving family and in the case of the u.s. we have around about thousand families each year who are looking to adopt russian children and give them the kind of loving home that we know that children need so it's extremely sad that children have been caught up in this way in the middle of

this dispute between two governments i think this magnitsky case is a fortune not unique is it i mean people do die in prisons across countries really why has this become such a stumbling block between washington and moscow and in europe it's i think part of the ongoing situation between russia and america and the european countries where there are still some things that need to sort of fall out after the so-called resetting of relations between russia and america fairly recently i think it's also bound up with a number of echoes of the financial crises over the last few years where we've seen all four problems in the us in europe concerning banks collapse of financial institutions and in the magnitsky case we can see that there's some need to pursue

justice in russia against a financial institution that's deemed to have had problems here perhaps dealing with the law perhaps with some kind of problems that have produced a real issue between two countries and in terms of russia's child welfare situ. systematically will this have an impact on it's hard to see how it cannot have any impact on it i know that a thousand children a year are generally being adopted by u.s. families. it's it's not hard to see how that can actually lead to considerable rise in the number of children in care in russia and how that can be dealt with is something that remains to be seen it's certainly something that either needs to be dealt with within russia or perhaps there are other countries to whom adopted children can go and as we understand it the u.s.

is refusing to approve the u.n. child rights convention saying contradicts principles of additional american education what principles are they talking about when i think it's more to do with the american constitution i'm certainly not an expert on the american constitution but there are states i know where for example punishments which go against the un convention on human rights of the child where those punishments are still on the statute books so it would seem to be that although the u.s. actually took a lead in framing the u.n. constitution of human rights of the child they're actually having some problems in ratifying it because of the because of the nature of the nature of the jurist durative juridical system and causing the death of a child can lead to a life sentence in the us can't it but when it comes to adoptive children their parents appear to get off more likely would you say that's true or not i don't

think that's true from what i've seen perhaps with one or two exceptions the punishments that have been handed down to those parents who've been found guilty of killing a child whether adopted or their own natural child those are usually in the area of fifteen eighty. all more years in the us i don't think there's any disparity between the length of time for a doc to child and for a natural natural boardroom ok roughly with a project for the founder of a science connections thanks for joining us here in the studio thank you. well iran says it would allow u.n. nuclear inspectors to look at the military base suspected of carrying out atomic related work but only if the threats against it are dropped but israel's prime minister built his re-election campaign around an anti iran platform and washington is piling on the sanctions political analyst mohamed her son carney says the u.s.

is the one stoking tensions in the region. the security is there reason on much or we should go quickly to shove or to create a regional security arrangement unfortunately the united states has been proved wrong kinked those out of our laws in a way i mean to give them this feeling that the threat is coming from terror on you need our presence here on or near real earnestness is it going to put the security of the region but we all know that iran has never been a threat and the contrary we have been weak team of the want to iraq war even during the war we the arab states are out of neighborhoods have been supporting saddam hussein at that time we didn't threaten but i mean if you give a regional issue or the security of the persian gulf the nuclear issue is also

something that we have to deal with. but the whole issue of when it comes to one is the fact that you are on is now what change the balance of power in duration so the problem is not the nuclear issue is not it's not the security of the person americans are doing do this in order to change the balance the. change in favor on duty for lots of almost. uprising in the arab or so. just pulling their quotes in order to make sure that they turn country in war as a regional power that's it and the dreads doctors and nurses once again on the streets calling for plans to productize hospitals to be scrapped. striking for a full week in a row medical workers are also angry about possible layoffs with many still unsure

whether their contracts will be when you next year spain's government says the cuts are needed to maintain the health service through recession become trees regions are an estimated one hundred forty five billion euros in debt. the opposition in egypt has dismissed president mercy's calls for dialogue i mean he hasn't offered any real substance on wednesday mercy delivered his first national address after signing in the charter hailing it as a way to democracy over the opposition insists the new constitution allows the islamic majority to form a dictatorship egypt's prosecutor has ordered an investigation into claims the opposition plotted to overthrow the regime. the newly elected japanese government plans to revise a decision to phase out nuclear power by twenty forty new prime minister declared sustained economic growth was his top priority and said rejecting nuclear energy

could undermine one of the country's biggest areas of expertise nasty an earthquake and searing tsunami brought the fukushima nuclear power plant to disaster. now zones of people from their homes because of wreaking radiation. the u.s. is still struggling to avoid dropping off the so-called fiscal cliff and to do so could put the entire global recovery at risk president obama has cut short his holidays to try and strike a deal to cap america's spending with a divided congress yet to reach a deal that's now i talked to came. from the international action center which coordinates activism and information for post a message in international justice thanks for joining us well tell us what is the fiscal cliff and just how serious could it be. well the fiscal cliff refers to a disastrous economic results that will take place if u.s. budget laws are not changed they are sat so there's something called

a debt ceiling so there's so much money so so much money is spent then all of a sudden there's a huge reduction in government spending and this is really staged by the bankers and the corporations because as capitalism is collapsing internationally they are they're setting up and they're trying to get people used to the idea that they have to accept cuts and all the services they depend on and so this is a staged crisis in order to force the people to pay for a process that the banks created or it's not the first time they say that democrats and republicans have squabbled over such a serious issue which could plunge the country as you say into another recession how long can this continue well the democrats and the republicans are playing different roles but they're reading from the same script there are republicans are trying to push forward the cuts you know they want to champion cuts and food stamps so that people can't get the food they need to survive they want to champion the cutting off of unemployment benefits and the layoffs in the destruction of unions in the public sector and the democrats job is to try and keep peace between.